Yasiin Bey (Formerly Mos Def) Set to Perform in Harlem this Month

Yasiin Bey ~ Initially regarded as one of the most promising rappers to emerge in the late â€™90s, Mos Def turned to acting in subsequent years as music became a secondary concern for him.

Yasiin Bey - Initially regarded as one of the most promising rappers to emerge in the late ’90s, Mos Def turned to acting in subsequent years as music became a secondary concern for him. He did release new music from timeto time, including albums such as The New Danger (2004), but his outputwas erratic and seemingly governed by whim. Mos Def nonethelesscontinued to draw attention, especially from critics and underground rap fans, and his classic breakthrough albums — Black Star (1998), acollaboration with Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek; and Black on Both Sides(1999), his solo debut — continued to be revered, all the more so astime marched forward. Mos Def often used his renown for politicalpurposes, protesting in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and theJena Six incident in 2007, for instance.

Born Dante Terrell Smith on December 11, 1973, in Brooklyn, NY, Mos Defbegan rapping at age nine and began professionally acting at age 14,when he appeared in a TV movie. After high school, he began acting in avariety of television roles, most notably appearing in 1994 on ashort-lived Bill Cosby series, The Cosby Mysteries. In 1994 Mos Defformed the rap group Urban Thermo Dynamics with his younger brother andsister, and signed a recording deal with Payday Records that didn’tamount to much. In 1996 his solo career was launched with a pair ofhigh-profile guest features on De La Soul’s “Big Brother Beat” and DaBush Babees’ “S.O.S.” A year later, in 1997, Mos Def released his debutsingle, “Universal Magnetic,” on Royalty Records, and it became anunderground rap hit. This led to a recording contract with RawkusRecords, which was just getting off the ground at the time, and he began working on a full-length album with like-minded rapper Talib Kweli andproducer Hi-Tek. The resulting album, Black Star (1998), became one ofthe most celebrated rap albums of its time. A year later came Mos Def’ssolo album, Black on Both Sides, and it inspired further attention andpraise. Yet, aside from appearances on the Rawkus compilation seriesLyricist Lounge and Soundbombing, no follow-up recordings wereforthcoming, as the up-and-coming rapper turned his attention elsewhere, away from music.

During the early 2000s, Mos Def acted in several films (Monster’s Ball, Bamboozled, Brown Sugar, TheWoodsman) and even spent some time on Broadway (the PulitzerPrize-winning Topdog/Underdog). He simultaneously worked on the BlackJack Johnson project with several iconic black musicians: keyboardistBernie Worrell (Parliament/Funkadelic), guitarist Dr. Know (Bad Brains), drummer Will Calhoun (Living Colour), and bassist Doug Wimbish (theSugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash, Living Colour). This project aimed to reclaim rock music, especially the rap-rock hybrid, from such artistsas Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst, who Mos Def openly despised. Whatmade Black Jack Johnson so anticipated though was not so much thesupergroup roster of musicians or even Mos Def himself, but rather thelack of black rock bands.

Following the demise of Living Colour, there were few, if any, that had attainedsubstantial success. Mos Def hoped to infuse the rock world with hisall-black band, and during the early 2000s, he performed several smallshows with his band around the New York area. In October 2004, hefinally delivered a second solo album, The New Danger, which involvedBlack Jack Johnson on a few tracks.Two years later, after a few moreacting roles — including the Golden Globe-winning Lackawanna Blues andthe Emmy-winning Something the Lord Made, both of which weremade-for-television movies — Mos Def released his third solo album, True Magic (2006). A contract-fulfilling release for Geffen, which hadabsorbed Rawkus years prior, the album trickled out in a small runduring the last week of 2006. Bizarrely, the disc came with no artworkand was sold in a clear plastic case — though its single, “Undeniable,”did manage to grab a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Solo Performance.The Ecstatic, released on the Universal-distributed Downtown label,followed in June 2009; at that point, Mos Def had significant actingroles in Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind (in which he co-starred withJack Black) and Cadillac Records (he played Chuck Berry).